#F1 Race Review: 2016 FORMULA 1 RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX

Prelude
Brilliant blue sky, scintillating with sunshine offset by large puff balls of clouds on the horizon set the stage for this year’s Russian Grand Prix. In addition to Lewis’ reliability woes and I quote here from my last review “Mercedes needs to get on top of reliability and I’m too tired to have tried to write this up” and aside from Brundle’s fixation with Button’s nipples, the main topic seemed to be Senna, this being the first time F1 has raced on May 1 since his death at Imola. On the topic of safety, Mr E. revealed himself to not be a fan of the new Red Bull windscreen, but happily enough was delighted that Lewis and Seb had implemented his plan for reverse type grids on their own. Conspiracy theorists start your engines!!! Verstappen reported issues with his engine and Lewis’ replaced the turbo, MGU_H, Energy Store and Control Electronics this morning, all without grid penalty since they are within his allotment of parts for the season. For the benefit of doubt from Article 34.2 of the Sporting Regs, teams are allowed to replace parts that are “similar in design, mass, inertia and function” with the approval of the FIA. Suspension and aero set up changes are expressly forbidden. Hulk, Gutierrez and Ericsson all start on the Soft tyre with the rest on the SuperSoft.

Summary
The Russian Grand Prix delivered everything we have come to expect from the 2016 version of Formula 1. GP3 driving standards on the first lap, no race for P1 at all, crap reliability for Mercedes and only 1 Ferrari finishing. Surprises include a double points finish for McLaren (Mc-WHO?) and points for Haas AND Renault and bizarre tyre strategy for Red Bull.

Almost all the action occurred on Lap 1, when Sebastian Vettel thoughtlessly brake checked Kvyat not once, but twice, with the second one sending the Ferrari man directly into the wall and out of the race. Kidding!!! In reality, Kvyat was apparently doing his best imitation of RoGro at Spa, bringing out the Safety Car for a couple of laps as the track was cleared. Though it does seem as if Vettel called this down on himself by slagging Kvyat off so bitterly in China. Given the rest of the race it was possibly worth losing Vettel for his post accident monologue (which was rather entertaining) and surely suggests he learned English by listening to sailors.

Hamilton benefited from a poor start this time round as it kept him well clear from the utter carnage and he wound up P5 once the safety car came round, choosing to go quite wide round the bollard on the T2 runoff and avoid all the stupid. On the restart once the Safety Car was in, he managed Lewis snagged P4 from Massa as Bottas retook the place he lost. Hamilton then went on to make a sweet, sweet overtake of Raikkonen up the inside when the IceMan was looking the other direction. IT was then a long slow slog behind Valterri till the Williams pitted on lap 17, effectively ending any realistic chance for Lewis to have a go at Rosberg.

Kvyat and Gutierrez led the penalty stakes early days, with both collecting stop and go’s for their poor driving, with Kvyat the big loser as he scored several own goals simultaneously, crashing Vettel, ruining his own race and billiarding Sebastian into Ricciardo ruining Danny Ric’s race as well. To cap it off, Red Bull elected to pit both cars and put them on the Medium tyre, which would frankly could have been put to better use for the mechanics rear ends and utterly doomed both cars to a pointsless and I guess pointless race.

Bottas went for the undercut on Lewis and was successful, temporarily, with Mercedes lagging 0.5s behind on the stop itself, which put the Williams just ahead as Lewis exited the pits. As Bottas came up to Alonso, Hamilton turned it on with his race at stake and managed to clear Valterri and Alonso in short order, leaving him 12 seconds behind Rosberg, a brutal gulf to cross given the parity between the cars.

Rosberg pitted 3 laps later as Lewis was already eating into his advantage Verstappen hung in longest on the Super Softs and just as Lewis reached Max he cleared the decks, diving for the pits and leaving nothing but clean air between the 2 Mercedes teammates.

Even though Rosberg was rocking 4 laps younger tyres, Lewis was still going to put in the effort and turn up the wick he did, marginally faster than Nico but nowhere near enough to catch him. At least until Rosberg hit traffic which slowed him and allowed Hamilton to start closing in.

Perez recovered from early disaster (a punctured tyre) and was keen to brag on his pace to his engineer, who sounded like possibly he’d heard that particular boast before. Meanwhile, Sainz continued the dodgy driving sweepstakes, collecting a stop and go for running a car off track. Nasr aslo joined the fun, missing the Lewis Hamilton Memorial bollard in the run off of T2 and also collecting a penalty for his efforts, both of which were added on to the finishing time as neither driver chose to pit before the end of the race.

After the first round of stops, Grosjean and Magnussen came upon a fairly defenseless Daniel Riciardo lap 29, just as Sainz towed Perez back up to the end of the 3 way battle. Lap 30 saw Ricciardo lose out on T4, with both Grosjean and Magnussen clearing him. Perez knocked off Sainz in the next laps and thus they would run to the end, only moving up a place when Verstappen’s 2015 Ferrari engine suddenly stopped running. Max smartly parked the car so that the Safety Car was not needed to recover him, a move that seemingly benefited Rosberg as Hamilton had taken nearly 4s off Nico in as many laps, once the frontrunner encountered traffic. Alas the epic battle was not to be as lap 39 saw Mercedes radio Hamilton to tell him there was a water pressure problem, effectively ending the race for P1 right there. This temporarily roused the nearly comatose Raikkonen, who put in an effort to catch Lewis, but such is the advantage of Mercedes right now Lewis could basically coast it in without any real threat. What was interesting, was that until that call and running at race pace, Hamilton managed to gain 10 seconds over 20 laps on Kimi, possibly the truest look at the race pace difference we’ve yet seen.

With the race effectively over Twitter beckoned as a great deal of fun was being had with Kvyat and Vettel, at least until Massa chose to pit from P5 on lap 47 for a new set of SuperSofts. Given his lead over P6 it cost him nothing and it quickly became apparent that he had become so bored he was going to give fast lap a go. Rosberg responded in kind and rapidly dialed in a nearly 1:39 even, which left the Brasilian shaking his head and the rest of us wondering if Toto rang up Smedley as a way to vaguely enliven the last laps of the race with Lewis hors de combat.

It did point up the stark difference of having no race at the front, with that lap time contrasting with the staid 1:41’s being run prior to Massa’s last stop. Entertaining too, was Alonso, who ran in the 1:41’s for a single lap, “just for fun”. It seems Macca/Honda have made a step, and were they allowed to burn unlimited fuel, might actually be giving Williams a bit of a bother.

Things worth noting, it is true that garage personnel were swapped between Lewis and Nico at the start of the season so have fun pursuing that. Of course, the biggest problems suffered by Lewis have come from Brixworth via the MGU-H. Also, of the races thus far, no race for P1 has survived lap 1 and that will not be helping ratings much. Wehrlein again looked racy to the limit of his car and bad news for Haryanto who didn’t get far before he retired. Good on Haas and McLaren for points and nice recovery by Perez for his finish, especially given Hulkenberg’s being taken out at the beginning. Oh yes, and special congrats to Sebastian Vettel for his mastery of English invective.

Fast forward, and Hamilton was behind Kvyat at turn-in, (rightly) avoided the carnage on his right (along with half a dozen other cars, including Ricciardo), on getting out he let himself overtaken immediately by Vettel (who had a big moment in T1 alongside a puncture and would have been slower than normal, which suggests Hamilton lifted significantly) and almost by Kvyat (right at the point when he decided to play bumper cars again), and then got past the Force India who was slowing down and itself getting passed by a Toro Rosso on the right (the latter doing huge avoiding action to not get tangled by the pirouetting Seb).

So if you do the math, couple hundred meters into the GP, Hamilton was in front of only the two chaps having fun bumping into each other and Ricciardo who had taken the same shortcut as himself. The Force India let him past, and he had a Toro Rosso by his side, which was BEHIND him before the first corner turn-in.

I missed that, but then I was half awake at at 5 am. Very good points on carnage avoidance. And why exactly did the torpedo ram twice, do you think? (And by torpedo I mean Kvyat. Who seemed to serve a penality that was unknown to my announcers)

The first ram was clearly Kvyat who lost it. He locked wheels and rammed into Seb. Seb even braked quite later than normal, as he made the move on Ricciardo. This one is no doubt on Kvyat. HOWEVER, it looks like the drivers simply got caught out by the slippery Russian asphalt. With Seb’s invective we may have missed it, but Gutierrez pulled the exact same trick on Hulkenberg. Clearly the two Germans don’t take the same English classes…

I’m more unclear on the 2nd tap, though. It looks as if the Force India in front of Vettel had slowed down abnormally compared to the other cars (understandably, as he got a puncture following the 1st accident), which prompted Vettel to lift, and to which Kvyat failed to react while being in full acceleration mode. Perez wasn’t touched by the 2nd accident, yet after it he got easily rounded up by both Hamilton and a Toro Rosso (who ran wide because of Vettel-Kvyat tangle), which makes sense only if Perez was MUCH slower through the long corner. Looks like the second ram was more akin to a racing incident (which is why Kvyat suggested Vettel test-braked him), and deserved nowhere near the uncouth expletives of Finger Boy… Yes, it’s frustrating, but this is racing, and we haven’t heard nearly the same level of vitriol from Kimi when Seb t-boned/rear-ended him in China…

That was the impression that I got when I saw it live. However, I have just had a slo-mo look and I reckon that Hamilton got past the car on the inside of him but both were off the track when he did it. The only other car he got past was Vettel who had been hit from behind which compromised his corner so you can’t blame Lewis for getting past him. So I would say Lewis was not guilty of place jumping.

Right. So Lewis was meant to add his car to the carnage? [mod] You clearly have NOT raced something with wheels in anger. At the speeds these guys are all barging into this corner, they have less time than what it takes for you to blink, to assess the situation, make a decision, and then execute that decision. Lewis did exactly the right thing. Any other decision by him at that moment, would have earned him a trip to the pits at the very least. If you dislike Lewis, fine, come out and say it, but dont sprout [mod] about “special privileges”. [mod]

I watched RTL germany and maybe ive been distracted by the kids or what not, but I didn’t hear about Senna.
However I got to hear much aplenty about Nico, Nico, Seb and Pascal. Did love Vettel’s responses in German – very calm and no expletives. Mature.
And then he went off to RedBull.

At least no robot.

Gutted of course about Max. Who in their right mind would’ve thought giving STR a year old engine was a good idea??? F1 is about development, so a 2016 Renault surely is better than a 2015 Ferrari!

I’m no complotista but it’s fishy. I think the diesel-gate of Volkswagen blew everything for RedBull and then they just ran around to secure any engine. I think they liked to give Ferrari a view into Max’ telemetry. For a discount of course.

Ow yeah the Germans are as bad as the dutch. They only have eyes for their fellow country men. The only difference is that the Germans have more of them in f1. But it just proofs the “lewis is the reason people watch f1” theory is false. Outside of Britain, and maybe a little piece of the US, nobody cares for anything else but their own countrymen.
And as for the max thing, I think they thought the year old ferrari engine must be better than the new Renault after the year they had. And since max’ result are pretty good, and sainz is just a little behind they weren’t that wrong. What happend yesterday was just unfortunate.

Oh yes. I find torro Rosso to be a very exciting team. For years now. Even when people just see it as a junior red bull team.
Red bull just didn’t want an old engine. Doesn’t fit the A status they have probably? They’ll never would be able to do anything against ferrari and if they could ferrari would have access to their data.

Prior to start, nice shot of Putin’s purchased token dolphins released like a flock of doves. Don’t worry the rest of the city is abandoned and still derelict.

Kvyat pulled a “This is for Mother Russia” to vettel. Unfortunately took himself out, his team mate out, vettel out, and took from the fans experiencing any chance of a exciting race.

Happy for Alonso and Grosjean.

Williams being Williams.

Bernie looks like a uncomfortable boyfriend introcing his girlfriend Putin to his crazy family. Always by his side asking “do you want something to drink? We have water, lemonade or some off brand soda” ll.

Ferrari is closer, I reckon, compared to last year, though nowhere near close enough for a serious challenge. Also, looking at how difficult it was for Hamilton to dispose of the Williams, it seems like there is “some” convergence. What terrifies me is the rest of the field, which is NOWHERE compared to the Merc and got lapped entirely (excluding Ferrari and Williams).

I think the two Williams cars were only still on the lead lap at the end because of the nature of the Sochi circuit, which leaves just Ferrari notionally in the same ballpark.

Meanwhile, a new seating plan has just approved for 2017 that will see the chair layout on the upper deck of our luxury vessel manipulated so as to afford superior views of approaching immovable objects.

Yeah, I’m wondering where this all leaves Sauber and Force India. They barely have cash to introduce car developments/go to the GP weekends while regulations are stable, so how are they supposed to make their cars radically more appealing and with more downforce? If they ever make it to 2017, I guess it’ll be balast aplenty and vanity plates… And more paint…

I still stick by my Blingmobile warnings, as the 2017 “more radical” regulations that require a full rethink of the aerodynamic concept of cars are a direct outcome of Ferrari’s concerted push for regulations shakeup that started roughly with their futuristic caricature in 2015…

Fortis …sad to say but I agree, Ferrari are still way behind even with the engine upgrade. I would have liked to see a clean fight between the top six but sadly we got robbed again. On a different point,in the drivers cool down room we had the Putin introduction,i am no fan of having vip’s in this area but I did get the impression that Lewis was pretty much snubbed. Even MrE was distant to Lewis, as you know i am no fan of him but if that was the case it’s not playing cricket as Lewis fought pretty hard to get his second place and it was the first race on his heroes death i might be reading too much into it but i wasn’t happy

After the race in Australia, I pointed out that the idea Ferrari were close to Mercedes to mount a serious title challenge, was false.

At the start, Seb had kimi between him and ROS and he was unable to pull a sufficient enough gap, I think it was hoovering around 3-4 seconds. ROS pitted first and took on the soft tires, jumped kimi and nearly did the same when Seb boxed for the SS tires. After that, he was still unable to build a big enough gap, which was yet again around 3-4 seconds at all time.

It’s all media driven, every week you get an overly excited Ted Kravitz banging on about how Ferrari are much closer on race pace blah blah blah, then come race day, they get a spanking.

If I’m not mistaken they ran their upgraded PU yesterday, the one with the new turbocharger which they spent I think 5 tokens on.

But in saying that, it was the slower of the 2 Ferrari drivers that was in 3rd place…..

At sochi the upgrade they ran used 2 tokens and no it was not a new turbocharger, that has still to come (Spain) it is said to be, In Australia and in China the FERRARI were a match for the Mercedes, as I said in my post “jet ignition subject April 26” the spark plug man had won pole in start of 2014 in this latest race between the three self appointed technical experts friends called HCCI/Mahle jet ignitor race, I was in discussion with two of them about this BS find of theirs on their sites, and one of them was trying to tell me that FERRAI was using the Mahle system as far back as Canada last year, which means STR are now using it, as I have explained to both of them and also on here, these two systems being used by FERRARI is a bucketful of BS, as both systems are not compatible with FIA rules.

fortis, the totonator seems to have convinced you with that “water pressure leak that than stabilised”, and no he wasn’t massaging Lulu’s ego.
As to “the media hype” its a good sign that you have finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel, I admit that most of what is pushed out I not having called it hype but “TOTAL BS”, the latest on here was on the page “jet ignition pushes engine combustion” April 26th, but on that subject I am still feeling sorry for killing that page discussion by my post back than, there being a chronic lack of technical discussion on here unlike at other places.

I called BS on the Ferrari being close from testing and later confirmed it was in Australia, so I saw the light ages ago…

As for ‘water pressuregate’ I didn’t buy that story one bit. And when he later stated that both cars had issues and struggled to say what it was that was wrong with ROS’ car, again I called BS!

*Warning putting on my tinfoil hat*

-We all heard about Lewis’s issue, why did we not hear about ROS’?

-Martin Brundle didn’t ask about it on the podium and I’m sure he was made aware of it before he got there?

– ROS seemed oblivious to it and only time he said anything, was when he was being interviewed in the press staging area. To which he said he had to just change some settings, but his pace didn’t drop at all…

*taking off tinfoil hat*…

I’m no mechanic, but if you’ve got water pressure issues, then I’d assume there’s either a leak or the pumps failing, I don’t see how backing off will stabilise it. But like I said, I’m no mechanic, so I could be wrong.

a failing head gasket is a thing of the past in formula one, the “increased pressure” assuming you are talking about combustion pressure, is due to turbocharging pressure being used (3 bar), and nothing to do with “running with the so called new ignition”, as I have already explained, this so called “new ignition system/s” (HCCI and Mahle jet ignitor) was all hogwash being pushed out by two self appointed technical experts, both these systems cannot be used in F1 as per the rules as are, I was in conversation with both of these so called technical experts on their claim, and was even told by one that FERRARI was using first one and than the other of these systems as far back as Canada last year, which means that if one believes them STR are this year using one of these systems.

I guess Rosberg is doing what he needs to do, but he is romping away with the championship. And this bothers me, because history will show that he beat a 3 time WDC in the same car. And that is patently not the case! With muppets like Bottas and Kvyat fucking up better drivers with their overly ambitious moves, and the absurd mercedes muppetry occuring on Lewis side of the garage, this is already a compromised championship. It is what it is I suppose. Rosberg is taking full advantage of this run of “luck”, but he is not “winning” anything in my mind, because he is not racing and beating anyone. This annoys me…

I guess Mercedes Benz is doing what they need to do, but they are romping away with the championship again. And this bothers me, because history will show that they beat all the other teams under the same PU development rules. And that is patently not the case – the starting point matters! With muppets like Ecclestone and Todt fucking up the rules with their overly ambitious changes, and the absurd steering committee muppetry occuring at the same time, this has already compromised championship for three years running. It is what it is I suppose. Mercedes Benz is taking full advantage of their absurd, locked-in PU advantage, but they are not “winning” anything in my mind, because they are not racing and beating anyone on a level playing field This annoys me…

Further, I vomit into my own mouth a bit now, when Rosberg is compared to the likes of Senna and Mansell and Schumacher, and even Vettel, for stringing 4 race wins in a row, and now, what? 7 in a row since last season? I read headlines, not here thank fuck, but all over the interweb, that Rosberg now joins “Elite list of drivers” yada yada. For fucks sake. Please. someone, give me a bucket. The only team mate NEVER to completely trounce Rosberg in his career was Schuey. And for an old man 3 years away from the sport, he held his own on Rosberg. Webber wiped the floor with Brittany at Williams, and Lewis has pretty much spanked Rosberg since they have been team mates at Merc. This season, thus far, is bullshit. With the luck he is getting, and it is luck, not talent or speed. Yeah, he is doing the job. He has the car underneath him that isnt breaking at all, and he is keeping his nose clean and not getting caught up in first corner tangles. Yeah. Great. But who has he raced to a victory this year? Utterly shits me. The vomit leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Apologies in advance for my rant…

Amazingly, Rosberg’s Grand Slam at the Russian GP sees him equal Ascari and Schumacher as the second longest winning streak (7) in F1 history. Only Vettel’s streak of nine is longer.

History is being made and it’s quite anticlimactic in my opinion. Though, despite that, seven-straight is seven-straight and that not only reflects on Nico but also on Lewis – though ultimately on Mercedes. It’s (almost) surprising that win-streak records haven’t been challenged earlier – either on a driver or team basis – given Mercedes’ unprecedented superiority over the years.

Nevertheless, I’ve a feeling those with an appetite for a genuine P1 fight, of which I’m included, will have said appetite sated at the Spanish GP. I imagine Toto will be ensuring both cars are reliable, perhaps at the expense of performance?

In Spain, Nico can push Lewis’ championship hopes to the brink with an 8th straight win, or Lewis could begin the arduous task of recovering almost two rounds worth of points. Either way, emotions will be strong and raw. Interesting times ahead.

In the end, trophies, titles and record books don’t show context.

@WTF_F1

PS: Did anyone see what Toto said to Mercedes-TeamLH fans prior to the race? OMG yolo lol’s with totes brb afk sugar on top, y’all. I think the hashtag is #Rekt.

A note, only suitable reading for those that have the balls to read/can take to keep this forum going till the next race.
Many different things where touched upon on this page, that’s not only good but it’s the way it should be. Here are my 2 pence on some of the things touched upon.
The bollard rule, the consequences of disobeying the rules does indeed depend on whom you are, the arrogance of some knows no bounds, after disobeying the rules in qualifying Lulu not only done it again in the race but gained advantages from doing it, but that was not all, after the race he described the reprimand given him as “ridiculous”.
The totonator was not massaging Lulu’s ego when he said that there was a cooling water leak and that it than stabilised, just imagine a cooling water system that rejects 250KW/270hp running at 3.75 bar pressure at a boiling point of 150 degrees C having a leak that than stabilises, ego-amour proper? And how.
The STR year old engine, what difference does a year old engine makes when according to some on TJ13 that engine was supposed to have 32 tokens at its disposal?, the sayings doing the rounds at the time that decision was made by the red bullies was that the red bullies jumped from the Renault plane believing they can buy a parachute on their way down.
latest concern from Lulu/still I rise/win together lose together, “my concern is not about beating Nico, my concern is more the guys giving me a car to be able to fight equally, I don’t think it is going to happen again?- no there will be problems ahead”.

Re the bollard – in qualifying he drove to the right of the bollard and received a reprimand; in the race he stayed left of it and was unpunished. That is just consistent application of a very silly rule.

Yes you are right, 8 cars ran wide at T1 at the start and no one got a penalty that time for doing so, goes to show how consistent is the FIA stewards with their own rules, could be that Lulu was right after the race saying that the reprimand he got was “ridiculous” !.

@bruznic: so a reprimand effectively for wilfully disregarding the instruction? Makes it a bit more logical

Saw the (UK) highlights package earlier. Lewis was actually pretty lucky in the race – was just far enough clear of the first VET-KVY clash to duck across the runoff to avoid it; even then VET didn’t miss him by that much after the 2nd part. Plus, the entire fracas took out 4 cars ahead of him

I am puzzled by the water pressure business as I assumed that F1 cars would use the new coolants that run unpressurised as they boil at 170 degrees. Perhaps the FIA mandate water to keep costs down! Even Ed China used this new stuff in an episode of wheeler Dealers so I assume is is widely used. As for Mercedes reliability they have themselves to blame after spending the entire Barcelona testing programme poodleing around with no attempt to push the power units. They even fooled some into thinking that Ferrari would have a chance this year. I don’t buy the conspiracy against Lewis so I expect Nico to have a few issues to even things out over the course of a season.

On a race track you cannot use any anti freeze or coolant other than water as if it escapes there is more risk of a failed cleanup of the track afterwards. I have on old engine which is cooled by oil and this runs so hot it cooks the head if you are not careful plus under pressure any coolant release sends my staff running for cover,one spark and your a BBQ

up to the NA 2.4l V8 just four (4) litres of cooling water in the entire cooling system was used, and that including inside the radiators of which (QTY) two (2) were used, these 4 litres of cooling water were circulated at about 270 litres per minute by the water pump, pumping water out of the engine at minimum of 125 degrees C, two water radiators (top and bottom) were used plus an oil radiator, these radiators were replaced every race weekend. Paul, are you reading as to what they will replace when allowed?

I hope you’re right and Mercedes have been too confident at the start. But ive never heard of dyno restrictions – are there any?
To me it seems you just run a few of those engines 24/7 on the dyno with virtual tracks and in full force and iron out issues. But given the number of failures I must be wrong.
Still, it was just one of those things. Waterpressure. I hope journalists will ask Toto and Lewis to describe the issue and how come it went away and what the relation is between pushing and the issue.

Looks like Merc do try their best to check Lewis’ car, but probably TRIPLE-check that of Rosberg. I don’t really buy to all conspiracy theories but that ‘waster-pressure’ warning when Lewis had just halved the time gap in 6 laps was a bit weird…

Awesome race result for Macca, let’s get back to regular top10s, C’MON!

If Rosberg’s car was in danger of not finishing as MERC has admitted why was he allowed to run it at break neck speed in the finishing laps to the point of setting the fastest race lap ? I would have expected just the opposite, nursing of the car to the checkered flag like LH44. Strange, no ?

Apperently the viewer rating in germany for the RTL went up 240.000 compared to Russia 2015.
Seems like the Germans enjoy nico winning. 4.45 million people watched.
And that’s only RTL. They have sky too…

I think Kvyat said his brakes locked for no apparent reason, which caused the first hit on the back of Vettel. The second hit was caused by Vettel lifting off in a full speed section, taking Kvyat by surprise.
However, Vettel should remember some of the incidences he caused in the past. The main one that springs to mind is him trying to take Webber out, by driving into him. Vettel lost out in that, but still had the nerve to blame Webber.
So, nobody is perfect.

The Russian GP was all done and dusted by about lap 25, which was a real let down.

The start, Kvyat, what were you doing. Clearly brakes far far too late into T1, he wasn’t making that corner had Vettel and Ric not been there. I was surprised to see that some of the cars who skipped round it all weren’t obligated to give the positions back as the VSC and SC then appeared, though tbh this would have made little difference to Lewis as both RBRs pitted and Vettel was in the wall at that point.

The second contact by Kvyat is the one which really bugs me. It’s very clear that both Vettel and Hamilton alongside him backed off similar amounts seeing the squirming Force India ahead. Whilst other drivers managed to slow or avoid the cars in front Kvyat ploughed into Vettel. It was pure amateur hour, and I assure you right now, had he done this to Lewis the media would now be talking about race bans etc. I digress though, my gripe isn’t with the media (although if those were taps Crofty, then I’d hate to see what getting rammed looks like!), it’s with Kvyat. Vettel very clearly told him in China that if you drive like that on the first lap you’ll probably not finish, Seb was right.

Kvyat spoiled a good race. We didn’t get to see Lewis battling through the field, and the race was a whole lot poorer for that. Kimi can’t defend to save his life and Bottas? Well even Lewis admitted the Finn didn’t try to defend.

It was a shame Lewis has water pressure issues, as I think many of us would have liked to see a battle. I’m not sure we would have really got one, given it looked like Rosberg was nursing everything and acting as a carrot on a stick to me but I guess that might have proven a story in it’s own right.

Huge shout outs to KMag and Fred for stella drives, though like everyone who started below P4 on the grid they had 4+ cars taken out of their way by turn 4, so the grid to finishing position stats are skewed by that a little.

In qualifying Lewis was given a reprimand for not going round the bollard thing, what an absolute load of rubbish, he was barely a cars width off the track. To expect him at that point to make it round the bollard was extremely unreasonable. I fully understand why he heavily insinuated that the stewards were “arseholes”, though that’s not going to make him any friends. Neither is not taking your lid off when meeting Putin for that matter.

Rosberg yet again delivered, getting a good start and making the most of what he’s had in front of him. I think it was clear in the title battle that things were getting to Lewis this weekend, his infamous two word answers came out again. I think a win for Rosberg when both Mercs start 1-2 and survive both the first corner and the race reliability free is what will really fire things up though. Roll on the internal war at Mercedes, because Ferrari clearly have to find somewhere between 0.5 and 1.0s to have a car that can out pace Mercedes. No wonder the Germans aren’t in favour of 2017 rules!

A little unfair on Kvyat I think. He did nothing wrong in China. Vettel left the door wide open and however much whining he does about it, it wasnt Kvyat’s fault. In Russia I think Kvyat was a little unlucky and maybe a little over eager, but that is racing.